Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/346

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land lying along the same parallel with Palestine." But it w reserved for the first soldier and gentleman of his day to found the new colony and perfect a noble benefaction. Had England exercised the same care over the other colonies as over Georgia, it is possible that the War of the Revolution might have been postponed indefinitely. It is worthy of note that while Virginia and the New England colonies were settled by exiles who drifted to the barren shores of Jamestown and Plymouth to escape religious and civil persecution, the Georgia colonists sailed the seas in the good ship Ann under the fostering care of the mother country, piloted by statesmen and noblemen, and sought the smiling Savannahs with all the forms of royal patronage. These people, released from debtors' prisons and freed from pecuniary obligations, cleared by a single act of royal clemency from bankruptcy, departed for Georgia with ships supplied from the coffers of nobility, while the spiritual welfare of the people was nurtured by the clergymen of the Established Church. It was a lofty benefaction, and when these hitherto unfortunate men felt their fetters fall, and knew that no bailiff awaited them in Savannah, it was no